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To live in London in 2023 is to be perpetually engulfed in a cloud of cloyingly sweet vapor. The scent of Blue Razz Lemonade replaces traffic fumes; Banana Ice covers the rancid smell of rubbish.
Disposable vapes are everywhere. Sleeker-looking than their bulkier, refillable counterparts, easier to get your hands on, and cheaper too, their use has exploded in popularity among adults—and, alarmingly, among young people.
A 2023 report from the UK’s anti-smoking foundation, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), found that one in five children had tried vaping, with almost 70 percent saying their most frequently used vape was disposable. In November, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its annual National Youth Tobacco Survey; it found that disposable vapes were the most common type of ecigarette used by young people across America.
This popularity has caused something of a panic. Doctors are calling for bans; schools have set up vape detectors. In early 2021, both smoking and vaping were actually on the decline among young people aged between 18 and 24 years old in the UK. Then disposable vapes came along and numbers shot up.
The use of ecigarettes among young people has tripled in the past three years. This, says Harry Tattan-Birch, a research fellow at University College London, is “crazy.” And as vaping rates rise, you’d expect to see a correspondingly steep decline in smoking, but that also hasn’t happened—which means that overall nicotine use is rising in the UK. As a result, says Tattan-Birch, specific concerns about disposable vapes need addressing.
The big question is whether younger people who use ecigarettes would’ve likely started smoking regardless. Data shows there’s now a growing proportion of young people that probably wouldn't have smoked otherwise who are using them, says Sharon Cox, the principal research fellow of the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group at University College London. The important thing now, adds Cox, is to work out whether this is a trend. Are disposable vapes simply a fad that’ll eventually fall out of fashion, or are young people going to continue to use them recreationally? Instead of waiting for that to play out, “now is the time to act,” she says.
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A variety of things make disposable vapes so alluring to young people. For one, their low price—only about $6.20—is cheaper than the average price of a packet of cigarettes. Convenience is another factor. Instead of having to individually buy all the different parts required for a refillable ecigarette, disposable vapes are rigged and ready to go—“perfectly tailored to give a nice nicotine hit without much brain power,” says Hattan-Birch. They’re sleek and brightly colored. On TikTok, people match their vape to their outfits.
The look of some ecigarettes is so important that Lost Mary, one of the biggest disposable vape brands in the UK, says part of its mission is “leading the way in fashion.” And, right now, disposable vapes are almost unavoidable; you seemingly can’t enter a convenience store in the UK without being greeted by a flashy display of disposable vapes at the door. Online advertising is also prevalent, and Elf Bar, a major disposable vape brand, got into trouble with advertising standards regulators last summer for paying TikTok influencers to promote its products.
The two most popular vape brands in the UK are Elf Bar and Lost Mary: Half of users between the age of 11 and 17 years old who were surveyed by ASH said Elf Bar was the brand they had tried; Lost Mary had been used by a quarter of people. In the US, Elf Bar makes up almost 57 percent of the most common brands—despite the company’s products being banned from being imported. (Jacques Xiang Li, head of global communications for iMiracle Shenzhen Technology, the Chinese company behind both brands, says Elf Bar is banned because it missed the date to apply to receive licensing from the US Food and Drug Administration that’s required to sell vaping products in the US. Xiang Li adds that the company doesn’t know how its products are still making it into the US.)
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Shenzhen, China, iMiracle Shenzhen Technology was originally an ecommerce firm before switching to disposable ecigarettes and launching the Elf Bar brand in 2018, says Xiang Li. It was a slow start, he says, but after a couple of years, sales picked up. “We saw just, like, breakneck growth,” he says. The company launched its Lost Mary brand soon after.
Until now, iMiracle Shenzhen Technology has kept a low profile. But that’s changing as officials and governments wrangle with how best to regulate vaping.
It’s a precarious balancing act: Policies have to ensure that anybody who wants to switch to ecigarettes from combustible cigarettes can do so as easily as possible, while also making sure that that ease of access does not encourage youth vaping. Vaping isn’t 100 percent safe, says Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “I think some people hear that when you say it’s less harmful than smoking, but I think what people forget is how harmful smoking is.”
There are few public health interventions as muddled as the messaging around ecigarettes. Most people now think that vaping is as harmful or more harmful than smoking. A lot of this is attributable to scary media reports about children ending up in hospitals due to vaping. “There are these horror stories, which are usually false,” says Cox. “‘Ecigarettes help people to quit smoking’ is not a press story, right?”
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Public health bodies have also caused confusion; the World Health Organization is still skeptical on ecigarettes. And this public perception has solidified in spite of the fact that a mounting body of evidence has now shown that ecigarettes are safer than smoking. (And no, vapes do not cause popcorn lung.) “The longer they've been around, the worse people's perceptions are,” says Cox of ecigarettes.
But the rise of disposable vapes is concerning. In October, the UK government launched a consultation to look into cracking down on youth vaping. Officials could restrict flavors, regulate packing and sale displays, or restrict the supply and sale of disposable vapes. Other countries have already taken action: In May, Australia banned all single-use vapes, as well as any ecigarettes not acquired via prescription. In June, New Zealand announced that it would ban most disposable vapes. France is hoping to bring a ban on disposable vapes by the end of 2023, and Ireland is also considering a ban. In Canada, the province of Quebec recently banned the sale of all flavored vapes.
Countries may also be considering a ban on environmental grounds. It’s estimated that two disposable vapes are thrown away every second in the UK, along with their valuable lithium batteries. Disposable vapes have been the cause of multiple fires in recycling plants in recent months.
But researchers aren’t so sure that bans will work. “Banning things seems desirable, but it doesn't work,” says Cox. With disposables, there's already a thriving illicit market. And banning a product can make its illicit market more dangerous. “The horse has already bolted—there's no point in shutting the stable door now.”
There are some simpler measures to curb smoking that could also be effective for stopping younger people from vaping. Taxing vapes, for one. Instead of $6.20, they could be double that. Making flavors less tempting could also work; instead of Triple Watermelon Crush Bliss, it could be just, say, watermelon. (Other countries, including the US, Denmark, and the Netherlands, have outlawed flavors altogether, but research has shown that this leads to more people smoking cigarettes instead.) A vape doesn’t have to be pink or blue; it could be gray.
And outright banning disposable vapes risks taking away the products from people who use them to quit smoking. Of course, protecting young people is important, says Hartmann-Boyce. “But I would always make a plea that we not forget about all the kids who die from secondhand smoke.”
